Manual:Infantry Manual:Tactical:Klingons

Combat Report: Looking Down the Barrel
Often times, Marine infantry find themselves up against threats like tanks that cannot be defended against solely through the use of the MISS arrays.

April 19th, 2374. What history is now calling the Khitomer Breakdown was in full swing. Hostilities had bro-ken into full-scale war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Marine units scrambled to protect out-lying Federation assets from the Klingon war machine. Ultimately, the Klingons would punch through the gauntlet of Starfleet and land on several Federation worlds and outposts before enough forces could be ral-lied to stop them.

Lt. Tom “Hell’s Belle” Belle, 233rd MSG: I think it was First Squad that spotted the K’rmach first; that translates to “squasher of ground troops”, or something like that. Way I understand it, the Klingon ground forces beamed back and then every-thing got real quiet. And they called, “watch out, because the Klingons just got out of the way”. Then, it comes up over the ridge about five hundred meters away. We had no drones at all, they’d been shot down. The Klingons were jamming and sniping them like crazy. Don’t let anyone tell you that the Klingons don’t know how to fight a technological war — it’s just that one, they like edged weapons. Two, they only use vehicles and large weapons when they feel like they have to. And three, every weapon has to look like it was hand-forged from a steel plate that Kahless dipped into a volcano and twisted with his hands, or something. They’ve got the most ornate, beautiful antitank weapons you’ve ever seen; I mean, you’d put one on your wall if you captured one. Spot a bunch of Klingons moving up with what looks like a modern art collection, and you’d better nail them before they put all that stuff together.

One-Alpha calls, “Tally ho, armored target, off your LOS,” and I respond, “Designate for MAP.” I had one MAPLIML in my platoon, and I kept her with me. I was thinking PCP, because we couldn’t use HIVAP without it being closer and in our LOS. They do, and I have her fire one. WHOOSH-BOOM, there it goes. Five seconds later, we hear, “no good”. And then, all hell breaks loose.

The Klingons back-traced our firing point and launched a Chicken Little over us. I’m yelling for every-one to boost their eloflage and for the MISS operators to fire up. Too late; three bomblets come down and do out Fourth Squad and two members of Two-Bravo. I’m starting to think I should’ve called in air or fire support, or our armor, to handle this thing; we were fighting static and we didn’t have an area to defend. Well, they ain’t going to leave us alone now.

I tell One-Alpha to hold fire and keep the S.O.B. in view. I lose them, I lose track of the tank. I check my tricorder and ask Cherie for the TDR’s reading for the tank. She gives it to me and I plug it in; the tank’s about five hundred and fifty meters away and at the speed he moves at, that’s no distance at all. I spot another ridge between him and us that I figure he’ll try to go around. We’ve got maybe one or two minutes before he’s rounding it. The order-- run!!!

Second and Third squads, and my MAPLIML and GOEIS team, are scampering along, and I’m putting everyone into the rocks. I have to put me, our MAPLIML, GOEIS, and several people from Second in this depression with no cover because I can’t use the screens with the rocks otherwise. It’ll take him a little longer-- but not much-- to kill us with the screens up. I figure he’ll see us in the rocks anyway, but hey. I tell Cherie to load PCP and a HIVAP behind it. All our GL’s, PCP. Everyone turns their phasers up to high needle. I tell everyone to fire their PCP in where they see Cherie’s go off, and then she’ll use her HIVAP, and then we fire phasers. And then, if we haven’t cracked the tank’s screens and ar-mor, I figure we just run like hell and hope they don’t decide to chase us. Everyone offsets their elo-flage from the person next door so it breaks up the signals some more. I was thinking at that point that I should’ve really insisted we get some jammers along.

We hear the energizer on the thing. And it rounds the bend; the Bringer of Smoke, or whatever the name means, twenty meters high and sixty long. The turret’s pointed away from us, not that this makes much of a difference- - it can turn our way really fast.

I just yell fire, and probably bust everyone’s ears over the I-LINK.

WHOOSH-BOOM! The PCP from the MAPLIML goes off and fulminates, turns the whole side of the vehicle into a sparkler.

The WGLs bloop-bloop-bloops their own PCP rounds, and the screens on this thing can’t be cover-ing that spot too good right now. The autoweapons on the turret are swinging around toward us and are starting their chop-chop, and the MISS arrays are up and it’s fountaining dirt and dust. I’m losing target visibility.

I’m hoping Cherie can see better than I can. “HIVAP away!”

There’s this ungodly explosion and bright fireball ahead of us, which wasn’t the tank — it was the booster in the HIVAP round, moving that thing to killing speed. Our screens just about puked from the reverse shock wave of the round punching out and we’ve got people bowled over and ducking, thinking the Klingons have fired a nuke at us. But it hits the tank, and you can hear that chalk-on-a- chalkboard WHAANG right through the MIPPA. It goes in! The tank lurches, we hit the powerpack, and that round went pyrophoric inside the frame and just tore up the internals. There’s smoke pouring out of the energizer covers. They’re on fire.

We fire phasers, right through the area that got pulverized by that HIVAP. And that vehicle is a Roman Candle. The whole rear end of the thing blows burning fragments out and then explodes, cutting the vehicle in half and physically shoving the smoking front end about twenty meters ahead. One Klingon — one — gets out and starts shooting his disrupter at us, and there’s this boom and a hole in the ground where he was. Actually, she — we found these carbonized earrings not far from the hole.

Even in these three disparate examples it is clear that tactics are wide ranging and must be flexible to be useful. It is often said that no engagement plan survives the first contact, and it is often true. That is why it is a necessity for Marines to train and practice until tactics and techniques become second nature to them. Without this level of training, it is impossible to adapt to changing tactical scenarios fast enough to survive. Fortunately, there is another old adage: “You fight like you train,” and the SFMC trains VERY well...